I see Turkey's future as being in Europe, as one of many prosperous, tolerant, democratic countries.

Life can't be all that bad,' i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a long walk along the Bosphorus.

Time had not faded my memories (as I had prayed to God it might), nor had it healed my wounds as it is said always to do. I began each day with the hope that the next day would be better, my recollections a little less pointed, but I would awake to the same pain, as if a black lamp were burning eternally inside me, radiating darkness.

I am proud to be a Turk, and to write in Turkish about Turkey - and to have been translated into about 40 languages. But I don't want to politicize things by dramatizing them.

As always after drinking too much, I felt like my own ghost trying to take it's first solo walk outside the body.

Are you an angel that approaching you should be so terrifying?

Immersing oneself in the problems of a book is a good way to keep from thinking of love.